My father made this beautiful sugar shaker - the one I showed yesterday. Every Christmas I polish it for use on the festive table. It is a pleasure to handle and works perfectly.

Its hallmark tells that it was made by Albert George Brooker and that it was hallmarked at the London Assay Office in the year 1950 with a leopard's head for the Assay Office in London (as opposed to Birmingham, Sheffield or Edinburgh), a lion for the purity of the metal and the letter P for the year.

This vase was made in 1950 for an exhibition in the Goldsmith's Hall in London. It was praised by our Queen who wanted to know how the gold stars were applied.

My father was taught at the Central School of Arts and Crafts in London by the great silversmith Francis Adam.

He worked, by commission only, in his London workshop. He taught at the Central School himself and later at the Sir John Cass College when the silversmiths' department was transferred there.

He taught the master clockmaker, Martin Burgess who wrote, 'Albert Brooker was a great craftsman, great teacher, with a precision eagle eye for line and form. His massive talents, acquired by years of hard work and study, were backed by a profound philosophy of work and life.'

He was the eldest child, and only son, of a poor London family. Here he is with the youngest of his four sisters.

Everyone who knew my father loved him. He was very much respected for the excellence of his craftsmanship and his ability to communicate with his pupils - and with his three daughters! I like to remember him in his workshop and to think that I inherited from him not only some lovely pieces of silver but the exact shape of his hands and some of their skill.

Click on the pics!